You can put homemade chicken noodle soup on the pantry shelf, but only if you can the soup without the noodles. Chicken soup is a low-acid food. It must be processed in a pressure canner, not a boiling-water bath. Noodles, rice, flour, cream, and other thickeners are left out of the jar and added when you reheat. That is the difference between a shelf-stable meal and an unsafe one.
This guide covers why the noodles stay out, which tested method to follow, how to process jars by altitude, and how to turn a canned soup base into a bowl of chicken noodle soup in about 10 minutes.
Why You Cannot Can the Noodles With the Soup
Two problems stack on top of each other.
Heat cannot move through a starchy jar the way a tested process assumes. Pressure canning works because the entire contents of the jar reach a temperature high enough, for long enough, to destroy Clostridium botulinum spores. Those spores survive boiling water. They grow in sealed, low-acid, low-oxygen jars and produce a toxin that can be fatal. Noodles, pasta, rice, flour, and dairy thicken the liquid and slow heat movement toward the center of the jar. USDA and the National Center for Home Food Preservation (NCHFP) do not provide a safe process for soups that contain those ingredients.
Quality collapses even if someone ignores the safety issue. Home pressure canning holds jars at about 240°F for an hour or more. Egg noodles and similar pasta turn slack and pasty. Commercial cans use industrial retorts, different formulations, and process controls that a home kitchen does not have. Copying a grocery-store can is not a home method.
If a pot of leftover soup already has noodles in it, freeze it. Do not pressure-can it.
What You Can Put in the Jar
A canned “chicken noodle soup” is really a chicken soup base: broth, cooked chicken, and vegetables that already have tested canning directions.
Safe in tested soup recipes:
- Chicken stock or broth
- Cooked, boned chicken
- Carrots, onions, and (in Ball’s tested chicken soup recipe) celery
- Dried herbs and salt
- Potatoes only when they appear in a tested recipe and are prepared as that recipe directs
Leave out of the jar:
- Noodles, pasta, rice, barley, dumplings
- Flour, cornstarch, or other thickeners
- Milk, cream, butter swirls, cheese
- Pureeing part of the soup to thicken it
- Vegetables that do not have their own USDA canning process (cabbage is the example NCHFP cites) when you are following the generic USDA soup method
Skim extra fat before filling jars. A thick layer of fat can climb the rim, interfere with the seal, and go rancid in storage.
Two Tested Ways to Can the Soup Base
Online recipes bounce between two official timelines. They are not the same process. Pick one and follow it as written.
USDA / NCHFP generic soup method
This is a framework, not a free-for-all recipe. Every vegetable and meat in the pot must already have its own tested canning recommendation. Meat is cooked until tender and boned. Vegetables are prepared as for a hot pack. Solids and liquid are combined and boiled 5 minutes. Jars are filled only halfway with solids; the rest is hot broth, with 1 inch of headspace. That half-and-half fill is what the process time is built on. Overfilling with meat and vegetables changes how the jar heats.
Process times at the listed pressures:
| Canner type | Jar size | Time | Pressure (low altitude) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dial-gauge | Pints | 60 minutes | 11 lb (0–2,000 ft) |
| Dial-gauge | Quarts | 75 minutes | 11 lb (0–2,000 ft) |
| Weighted-gauge | Pints | 60 minutes | 10 lb (0–1,000 ft) |
| Weighted-gauge | Quarts | 75 minutes | 10 lb (0–1,000 ft) |
Increase pressure at higher elevations (tables below). If the soup contains seafood, the time becomes 100 minutes.
Ball homemade chicken soup recipe
Ball publishes a specific chicken soup: stock, diced cooked chicken, celery, carrots, and onion. The mixture is simmered, then ladled hot into jars with 1 inch of headspace. Because the jar is packed more like a finished soup than the USDA half-solids rule, Ball uses longer times that match poultry processing: 75 minutes for pints and 90 minutes for quarts at 10 lb (weighted gauge) or 11 lb (dial gauge) at low altitude, adjusted for elevation.
That is the recipe most home canners mean when they want a ready chicken noodle soup base. Do not mix Ball’s ingredient ratios with USDA’s shorter times, or USDA’s half-solids rule with Ball’s longer times, unless you are following that source end to end.
A pressure canner is required. An electric pressure cooker or multi-cooker is not a substitute, even if the appliance has a “canning” button.
Equipment You Need Before You Start
- Pressure canner with a working gauge or weight (not a small pressure saucepan)
- Pint or quart mason jars made for canning (not half-gallons)
- New lids and matching bands
- Jar lifter, bubble remover or plastic spatula, clean cloths
- Wide-mouth funnel
- Your altitude, looked up once and written on a card by the stove
Wash jars in hot soapy water. NCHFP does not require pre-sterilizing jars when the process time is 10 minutes or longer; clean hot jars are enough. Keep them hot so they do not crack when filled.
Have the canner ready with the rack and 2–3 inches of water, or whatever depth the manufacturer specifies for a long process.
A Practical Chicken Soup Base to Can
The following follows Ball’s tested homemade chicken soup proportions and process. It makes about 4 quarts or 8 pints.
Ingredients
- 16 cups chicken stock
- 3 cups diced cooked chicken (from about one 3-pound chicken)
- 1½ cups diced celery
- 1½ cups sliced carrots
- 1 cup diced onion
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Optional: chicken bouillon cubes, dissolved in the hot stock
Cook the chicken first if you are starting from raw pieces or a whole bird. Cool it enough to handle, remove bones and skin, and dice the meat. Homemade stock is fine; so is unsalted or low-salt packaged stock. If the stock is very fatty, chill it and lift off the solid fat before you combine everything.
Make the soup for a hot pack
- Combine stock, chicken, celery, carrots, and onion in a large pot.
- Bring to a boil, then simmer about 30 minutes so the vegetables heat through and the flavors meet. Season. Dissolve bouillon if you are using it.
- Keep the soup hot while you fill jars. Do not add noodles.
Fill the jars
- Ladle hot soup into hot pint or quart jars, leaving 1 inch of headspace.
- Slide a bubble tool around the inside. Recheck headspace and add more hot broth if needed.
- Wipe rims with a clean damp cloth. Fat or food on the rim is a common reason lids fail.
- Apply lids and bands fingertip-tight. Do not crank them down.
Process in the pressure canner
- Load jars onto the rack. Lock the lid. Vent steam steadily for 10 minutes.
- Add the weight or close the vent and bring the canner to the correct pressure for your altitude.
- Start the timer only after pressure is reached. Hold pressure steady. If it drops below the target, bring it back up and restart the full time.
- Process 75 minutes for pints or 90 minutes for quarts (Ball chicken soup).
- Turn off the heat. Let the canner return to zero pressure on its own. Wait the extra minutes your canner manual requires, then open the lid away from your face.
- Lift jars straight up. Cool 12–24 hours without tightening bands or tilting jars.
A lid is sealed when the center does not flex. Remove bands, wash the jars, label with the contents and date, and store in a cool, dark, dry place. Best quality is within a year. Refrigerate after opening.
If a lid did not seal, refrigerate that jar and use it within a few days, or freeze it.
Pressure Adjustments by Altitude
Water boils at a lower temperature as elevation rises. Pressure canning compensates by raising pressure, not by guessing extra minutes.
Weighted-gauge canner
| Altitude | Pressure |
|---|---|
| 0–1,000 ft | 10 lb |
| Above 1,000 ft | 15 lb |
Dial-gauge canner
| Altitude | Pressure |
|---|---|
| 0–2,000 ft | 11 lb |
| 2,001–4,000 ft | 12 lb |
| 4,001–6,000 ft | 13 lb |
| 6,001–8,000 ft | 14 lb |
Have a dial gauge checked annually. A weight does not need calibration the same way, but the vent must be clear.
How to Turn a Jar Into Chicken Noodle Soup
This is the step that makes the pantry jar taste like soup instead of canned vegetables in broth.
- Empty the jar into a saucepan. If the soup looks crowded, add a splash of water or extra stock.
- Bring it to a boil.
- Add dry noodles. Wide egg noodles, extra-wide egg noodles, or small shapes all work. Start with a modest handful per quart; you can always add more.
- Simmer until the noodles are just tender. Taste and add salt, pepper, parsley, or a squeeze of lemon.
Cooking the pasta in the reheated soup lets it pick up chicken flavor without sitting in a jar for months. If you want firmer noodles, boil them in a separate pot and stir them in at the table.
The same jar can become chicken and rice soup, chicken and dumplings, or a pot pie filling. Rice and dumplings belong in the serving pot, not the canner.
Mistakes That Make Home-Canned Soup Unsafe or Disappointing
Water-bath canning “just this once.” Boiling water never reaches the temperature needed to kill botulism spores in meat soup. There is no safe water-bath time for this food.
Canning leftover noodle soup. Once starch is in the pot, the tested process no longer applies. Freeze leftovers.
Packing jars solid with chicken and vegetables. The USDA soup process depends on a high liquid-to-solid ratio. A jar stuffed like stew heats like stew, and stew has different (usually longer) tested times and a different recipe structure.
Skipping the vent. Ten minutes of steady steam clears air from the canner so the pressure reading matches the temperature inside.
Starting the timer before pressure is reached, or ignoring a pressure drop. The published minutes assume continuous pressure at the listed PSI.
Adding dairy “for richness.” Cream soups are not a home-canning project. Fat and dairy protect spores and separate in the jar.
Using a cracked jar, a reused lid, or a dirty rim. Seals fail for ordinary mechanical reasons more often than for mysterious ones.
Tasting from a doubtful jar. If a lid is bulging, the contents spurts, the soup smells off, or the liquid is cloudy in a way that does not match the day you canned it, do not taste it. Discard the food without putting it in a pet bowl, and treat the cleanup as you would other potentially contaminated canned food.
Canning vs Freezing When You Want Actual Noodles in the Bowl
Pressure canning wins when freezer space is tight, the power is unreliable, or you want grab-and-simmer meals on a shelf. The tradeoff is the extra step of adding pasta later, plus the long process time.
Freezing wins when the soup is already finished with noodles, when you want a creamier bowl, or when you do not own a pressure canner. Frozen noodle soup still softens in the freezer; undercook the pasta slightly if you freeze a fully assembled pot.
Many households do both: quarts of canned soup base on the shelf, and a few frozen containers of fully finished soup for nights when even boiling noodles feels like too much.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I can chicken noodle soup in an Instant Pot? No. Extension and NCHFP advise against using electric multi-cookers for home canning. They do not heat or hold temperature the way a stovetop pressure canner does when it is following a USDA process.
Can I use raw chicken in the jars? Follow the recipe you chose. USDA soup directions cook the meat first, cool it, and remove bones. Ball’s chicken soup starts with cooked diced chicken. Raw-pack poultry exists as a separate tested process for meat packed in water or broth, not as a custom soup with mixed vegetables and a homemade ratio.
Why do some blogs process pints for 75 minutes and others for 60? They are following different tested recipes. USDA generic soup at a half-solids fill is 60/75. Ball’s chicken soup is 75/90. Use the time that belongs to the recipe and fill style you actually used.
Is celery allowed? Ball’s tested chicken soup includes celery. The USDA generic soup method says each vegetable should have its own canning recommendation; celery does not have a standalone USDA process. If you want celery in the jar, use a tested recipe that already includes it rather than inventing a hybrid.
How much salt should I add? Salt is for flavor. It is not what makes the soup safe. You can can the soup with little or no salt and season at serving, which is useful if some people in the house need a lower-sodium bowl.
Can I double the vegetables or cut the broth to make a stew-like jar? Not inside the USDA soup process. A thicker, packed product is a different food. If you want stew, use a tested stew or meat-and-vegetable recipe, not a scaled-up soup.
How do I can soup I already seasoned with lots of garlic, thyme, and bay? Dried herbs and garlic in modest amounts appear in many tested savory recipes. Keep the soup brothy, skip thickeners, and stay inside a tested structure. Add fresh herbs when you reheat if you want a brighter finish.
What if the power goes out mid-process? If pressure was lost, the safe approach is to start over from the beginning of the timed process once you can hold pressure again—or cool the jars, refrigerate, and eat or freeze the soup soon. Do not count partial time as if it were a complete process.
Home-canned chicken soup is worth the afternoon when the method matches a tested process. Can the base. Keep the noodles for the night you open the jar. That is how you get a pantry meal that is both convenient and safe to eat.